In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

miniflea:In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

Given how people will picture 600ad to 1300ad very similarly, or 300bc to 300ad, togas n shiat, I reckon in a thousand years people will think we go on great steamships to the other side of the world, and concordes for the return leg. Giant skyscrapers overlooking King Louis XVI's execution and whatever someone invents in 100 years time at the battle of Waterloo.... and moon pie. Moon pie? What a time to be alive.

miniflea:In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

"Were ancient people writing about events they witnessed? Who were these mysterious Skywalkers, and where were they going on their epic Star Trek? Was Babylon 5 a space outpost for the aliens that controlled ancient society?"

The Greeks did the same thing. The Acropolis had painted stuff all over. The frieze of the Parthenon now sometimes referred to as the Elgin marbles, was painted in what most people would call cartoon colors. Not just bright but damn near gaudy. And the Romans like the Greeks put paint on anything, not just marble but other stone, wood, concrete etc.

miniflea:In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

The ability to maintain equipment at the lower level will be lost, always.

miniflea:In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

They will have good data from color photographs in books, so from about 1930 to roughly about now. I expect at least some books with color photos will survive over that time period.

Looking into the future, I'm less confident. Electronic data just doesn't survive as well as a printed hard copy.

dittybopper:miniflea: In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

They will have good data from color photographs in books, so from about 1930 to roughly about now. I expect at least some books with color photos will survive over that time period.

Looking into the future, I'm less confident. Electronic data just doesn't survive as well as a printed hard copy.

Was going to say the same thing. Barring new advances in storage technology and people willing to recopy lots of info stored on present day digital devices to that new medium, today's society won't be leaving much behind that folks a few centuries from now will be able to look at. There will certainly be lots of crumbling concrete, though.

I've always heard that the statues were painted but I always wondered why the paint never survived. There are many examples of painted murals and frescoes, not to mention graffiti in roman buildings. Why did that paint survive but the paint on the statues didn't?

OMFG dude...... What the hell was the name of that book? I wanted to recommend it to someone last week when they were musing on what future archaeologists might think about modern society, but I couldn't remember the book. THAT was exactly what I remembered though.

Igor Jakovsky:I've always heard that the statues were painted but I always wondered why the paint never survived. There are many examples of painted murals and frescoes, not to mention graffiti in roman buildings. Why did that paint survive but the paint on the statues didn't?

I guess because most building materials that you paint on are not highly polished and solid, so the paint sinks in and is absorbed, and there is more of it, where on marble it will peal away very easily if the statue is abraded or exposed to the elements?

Of course once movies in the past have assumed something, it becomes expected and often the movie makers would be ridiculed for showing the truth - wasn't there a fark link a week or so ago on this very topic - things like the statue of liberty head being made larger than reality in Cloverfield after audience complaints, and some criminals escape attempt was toned down compared to reality, Mars is shown as red, etc.

cretinbob:OMFG dude...... What the hell was the name of that book? I wanted to recommend it to someone last week when they were musing on what future archaeologists might think about modern society, but I couldn't remember the book. THAT was exactly what I remembered though.

Motel of the Mysteries. Same artist/author who did the City/Cathedral/Mill/Unbuilding series.

miniflea:In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

With our luck it will only be things rule 34 related that survive and our generation will not be spoken of at all.

Dwight_Yeast:cretinbob: OMFG dude...... What the hell was the name of that book? I wanted to recommend it to someone last week when they were musing on what future archaeologists might think about modern society, but I couldn't remember the book. THAT was exactly what I remembered though.

Motel of the Mysteries. Same artist/author who did the City/Cathedral/Mill/Unbuilding series.

Heron:dittybopper: miniflea: In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

They will have good data from color photographs in books, so from about 1930 to roughly about now. I expect at least some books with color photos will survive over that time period.

Looking into the future, I'm less confident. Electronic data just doesn't survive as well as a printed hard copy.

Was going to say the same thing. Barring new advances in storage technology and people willing to recopy lots of info stored on present day digital devices to that new medium, today's society won't be leaving much behind that folks a few centuries from now will be able to look at. There will certainly be lots of crumbling concrete, though.

And with digital data, you'd better hope the software you used to create it is still around. I have a disc of old letters and scripts that I can't read at all because they were written with Windows Write, a word processing program that came with Win 3.0. It's unreadable gibberish per Notepad and MS Word won't open it at all. I still have several printed pages of stuff from that era, though. If it's important, print it out.

WhyteRaven74:The Greeks did the same thing. The Acropolis had painted stuff all over. The frieze of the Parthenon now sometimes referred to as the Elgin marbles, was painted in what most people would call cartoon colors. Not just bright but damn near gaudy. And the Romans like the Greeks put paint on anything, not just marble but other stone, wood, concrete etc.

I learned this on fark some time ago. Poster had a nice link with what painted Greek marbles probably looked like. /stone cutter/

WordyGrrl:Heron: dittybopper: miniflea: In a similar vein, medieval castles were always richly decorated, but are always depicted as being of bare, cold, stone, because none of those decorations survived and we mostly don't know what they looked like.

I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

They will have good data from color photographs in books, so from about 1930 to roughly about now. I expect at least some books with color photos will survive over that time period.

Looking into the future, I'm less confident. Electronic data just doesn't survive as well as a printed hard copy.

Was going to say the same thing. Barring new advances in storage technology and people willing to recopy lots of info stored on present day digital devices to that new medium, today's society won't be leaving much behind that folks a few centuries from now will be able to look at. There will certainly be lots of crumbling concrete, though.

And with digital data, you'd better hope the software you used to create it is still around. I have a disc of old letters and scripts that I can't read at all because they were written with Windows Write, a word processing program that came with Win 3.0. It's unreadable gibberish per Notepad and MS Word won't open it at all. I still have several printed pages of stuff from that era, though. If it's important, print it out.

If you can't find one of the above programmes to use, just open it in WordPad or Notepad. You'll probably see a lot of junk characters at the top and bottom; these is formatting and other metadata you can't use and don't need. The original text should still be intact in between, though probably not in the original page layout. Just delete the junk, save the rest in whatever format you want it to be in now, and reformat at your leisure.

miniflea:I often wonder what will be known about us in a thousand years, how much they will have wrong. I suspect that less data will survive that span of time than many would assume.

I think they'll know far more about us than we will about the Romans.

History didn't seriously start being regarded as an investigative science until the Enlightenment.

The problem with Roman historians (or any ancient historians) is that history to them wasn't considered an investigative science but rather a form of theatre or literature. The Romans weren't interested in the facts, they were interested in the best story, so their writers were encouraged to dress up their histories with as much sensationalism as possible that would make their accounts more evocative than other historians' accounts. It was the most popular accounts that usually passed into history as truth (which is why nearly every Roman writer was pro-Senate and often depicted the Imperial Family as a bunch of backstabbing, duplicitous spoiled powermongers, which they probably were, but not to the soap opera extent that every writer portrayed them as).

This is what we have to accept today: That every surviving record is very likely the Fox News equivalent of Roman history. In other words, partially based on truth, but probably not even close to being accurate.

Sylvia_Bandersnatch:WordyGrrl:I have a disc of old letters and scripts that I can't read at all because they were written with Windows Write, a word processing program that came with Win 3.0.Maple can correctly import .wri files....Here's an experimental converter you might try.